ComReg Trends Report Q3 2005 - Get your wellies out

damien

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0586a.pdf

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0586b.pdf

cgarvey

That's a pretty steep drop for Eircom retail BB.. undoubtedly heads will roll for that one. It'd be handy if someone in ComReg/Amárach could export to PDF without clipping (I mean, how hard can it be, even for 1st timers).

.cg

eircomtribunal

Thank you very much ComReg! You give us stagnation at one of the lowest levels of Internet usage in the Western world.

Page 16:
Does your household have home Internet access by any device?
Yes: 37%
No: 63%

Page 17:
The average Internet bill per month (excluding line rental) is € 34.20
Still only 26% of Internet access is by broadband.

P.

kaizersoze

Two results in that survey surprised me.
BT Ireland have only 3% more internet customers than Smart Telecom (6% v 3%). Given that Smart don't have a dial up service (that I know of) and their BB coverage is so small I thought the difference would be greater.
And
Only 2% of respondants said that their reason for not switching to broadband was their line failing the BB test. I would have thought that would be much higher.

eircomtribunal

kaizersoze wrote:

Two results in that survey surprised me.
BT Ireland have only 3% more internet customers than Smart Telecom (6% v 3%). Given that Smart don't have a dial up service (that I know of) and their BB coverage is so small I thought the difference would be greater.
And
Only 2% of respondents said that their reason for not switching to broadband was their line failing the BB test. I would have thought that would be much higher.

ComReg's trendwatch survey is useless, and especially useless for such detail. It is just another example of our regulator pretending to do something useful with our money.

When I recently argued using some figures from this surveil, ComReg intervened, basically stating that the figures in their survey were useless (well they used a more diplomatic wording: "The purpose of the survey is to gain an understanding of the attitudes and perceptions of residential consumers with regard to a range of telecommunications and broadcasting services provided in Ireland. Data from this survey is subject to a margin of error; typically 2-4% where responses total 1000. This margin of error increases as the sampling population decreases. This is the case where more in-depth questions are asked of a sub-group of the respondent population, e.g. questions are asked of a sub-group of the respondent population, e.g. questions about the types of internet payment plans used by current internet subscribers in the market...The survey data, with its limited sample size (and associated margin of error) is very useful for understanding the "softer" issues within the market, e.g. satisfaction levels with operator complaint handling processes...")

When the figure of having only 37% of home Internet penetration pops up, all the red warning lights should ignite, instead there is no comment at all in the report, no putting this devastating figure into the international context.
Or perhaps explaining why a year ago ComReg still misled the public and decision makers on its website:

P.

damien

Actually Peter, I was just looking at these stats again. The 37% are people in households who access the net via any means, not just fixed line and broadband so that should include 3G and maybe GPRS. One would expect it to increase slightly with all these new great technologies.

damien

http://lists.ie/pipermail/media/2005/000046.html

** BEGINS **


Consumer group warns about poor Internet usage figures.
IrelandOffline today expressed alarm at the growing digital divide in Ireland after new ComReg statistics were released. The figures delivered by ComReg [1] show that Internet use in Ireland has not increased in two years, that the majority of people connect using dialup instead of broadband and that ISDN usage is increasing rapidly when it should be falling and being replaced with broadband.

Reacting to the figures, IrelandOffline Chairperson Damien Mulley said: "These ComReg figures should start ringing alarm bells in the DCMNR. That we have a digital divide is a given, but with only 37% of households going online, a figure unchanged in two years, [2] this divide isn't decreasing but rapidly turning into a chasm."

Turning to the ComReg fact that more than 7 out of 10 people don't use broadband to access the Internet, Mulley added "Internet users in this country want and need broadband but as we've been saying for the past number of years, they simply cannot get it. It just isn't there for those that want it and massaging availability figures doesn't help the end-user. Results of our own survey of 1400 people will be published later this week and the results show that there is an overwhelming demand for broadband from those currently suffering dialup and ISDN Internet access."

The new ComReg figures also show a worrying trend that ISDN usage has almost doubled since 2003. Spokesman Martin Harran stated "ISDN is a totally outdated technology for Internet access, a technology created in the 1970s. Even using two lines and paying double call rate, it is less than one eight of the speed of common starting packages for broadband and prohibitively expensive. The fact that more and more people are having to turn to it in desperation shows amply both the desire for higher speed and yet how unavailable it is for so many people."

These latest ComReg statistics come on the back of other ComReg, EU and OECD figures showing Ireland has the highest mobile bills in the EU [3], the highest line rental in the EU, [4] the 4th highest landline bills in the EU [5] and a miserable rate of broadband usage compared to the rest of the OECD.[6]

Commenting on all the recent reports on telecoms in Ireland, Mulley stated "It's not as if there is anything magical about what has to be done to sort out this mess - the path has already been clearly shown by so many other countries in the EU. The Minister needs to give the regulator some teeth and encourage them to use them and he needs to sign up to one the many reports which recommend a National Broadband Plan. We need to take the model of the National Roads Authority and apply it to broadband."

The IrelandOffline Survey of 1382 Internet users will be released on Wednesday.

[1] http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0586a.pdf Pg 17

[2] http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg03144d.pdf The figure for Dec '03 shows 37% of all households have Internet Access.


[3] http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0573.pdf Mobile monthly ARPU is €48. The EU average is €31. €17 per month higher for Irish Consumers.

[4] http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0543.pdf (Line rental details on page 15.)

[5] In the report we were 4th most expensive in the EU. The report can be viewed here: http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ecomm/doc/all_about/implementation_enforcement/annualreports/10threport/sec20041535VOL2en.pdf

[6] http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,2340,en_2825_495656_2496764_1_1_1_1,00.html OECD Report for Dec 2004.

Sponge Bob

(I cannot really find the linkees and stuff around here with search not there)

I am concerned about the PC penetration figure in this report, the real figure for PC penetration , and allowing for the Household Budget survey not covering laptops as they are not permanently in the house, is 52-54% today .

It was 43.5% in April 2002 (p4 of 24) . But another survey by the CSO put that lower in 2004 when they decided the 2004 figure was 46.2% (chap 3) but that it had gone up from 42.3% in one year.

42% is just plain wrong ,(the Comreg sample was small ) but is a convenient excuse for Comreg . Add in BB enabled Playstations and consoles and we have about 60% of households able to go online for BB with the gear in the house today . The CSO reckoned that 38% of households could and did access the Internet in 2004 and with a wider sample .

Here is the CSO Census Table for 2002 when 34% accessed the Internet off a lower base of computers and playstations but with a sample size of everybody and every house .

Solair

I'm not at all convinced by the statistics in these quarterly polls.

The way that opinion polls are conducted in Ireland in general varies from poor to unbelievably poor.

ComReg would want to be very careful about producing misleading results in these as they impact on ireland's image abroad and are taken at face value by many other organisations.

I don't believe the PC penitration levels, they sound far too low.

While broadband internet access may be a factor, Irish consumption trends of almost everything closely match the UK and I can't see why this wouldn't apply to home computers. These surveys would indicate not only that we have no broadband but also that we have some sort of natural dislike for computers.

However, that being said, Ireland has a huge problem with a lack of places to physically purhcase a computer. It's only in very recent years that we're seeing big-box stores and mainstream retailers take PC selling seriously. E.g. it's now easy to pick up a PC in tesco. 3G stores are flogging home pcs and macs and even O2 Retail's pushing macs. The likes of Harvey Norman can only help too.

Likewise, internet access products are poorly marketed here. Eircom's campaigns are there but they're not great. Esat/BT Ireland's campaigns look amaturish and pathetic and miss the point most of the time. Smart's ads all target people who already know what broadband is. They don't point to any reason why someone should actually get it.

If AOL or Yahoo or wannado or someone who can package the internet in a friendly way for those of us who arn't technical and are a bit scared off by it it will have a major impact on the market.

e.g. If eircom net started bundling broadband with PS2 consoles or something... and did this in a very high impact way. You'd have massively higher uptake of broadband.

None of these companies have been capable of actually packaging and marekting the internet in a mass-market consumer-oriented way.
Eircom's current ads are (with the one of the holiday show) are OK but are almost the other extreme .. i.e. too patronising.

You need to hit the market with something like Vodafone Live! style advertising. i.e. people will suddenly see a very technical service (in vodafone's case WAP) as a sexy, easy to use product that they want for some reason.

uncle_sam_ie

Solair wrote:

Likewise, internet access products are poorly marketed here. Eircom's campaigns are there but they're not great. Esat/BT Ireland's campaigns look amaturish and pathetic and miss the point most of the time. Smart's ads all target people who already know what broadband is. They don't point to any reason why someone should actually get it.

It might help if they made products available too.:(

eircomtribunal

Solair wrote:

...and I can't see why this wouldn't apply to home computers. These surveys would indicate not only that we have no broadband but also that we have some sort of natural dislike for computers.

Today computer usage/growth is intimately linked with Internet/Broadband access.
We may not be as low with PC penetration as the ComReg Amarach Trendwatch suggests (expensive but poor survey), but that should never be used as an excuse for our dismal Internet take-up, as ComReg have decided to do. (Instead of looking around for new culprits, the Commissioners need only look into the mirror.), but our PC penetration growth could not other than suffer from expensive forced dial-up: I could not maintain my computer without broadband connectivity, it is as simple as that.

However, that being said, Ireland has a huge problem with a lack of places to physically purhcase a computer.

With due respect. That is the biggest red herring which McRedmond ever invented.

P.

Sponge Bob

eircomtribunal wrote:

With due respect. That is the biggest red herring which McRedmond ever invented.

Indeed, cf Estonia for proof.

Capt'n Midnight

However, that being said, Ireland has a huge problem with a lack of places to physically purhcase a computer.

:rolleyes: I've always seen this as an admision that we won't ever get decent internet access, it's not as if we make most of the computers sold in europe on the net and phones or anything

For me the headline is that fixed lines are down to 71% , (84% for mobiles) down nearly 1/7th in a year !

Sponge Bob

line rental is the killer here , see these charts of the competition . Less PC's and more BB connections



and



source http://www.ria.ee/atp/?id=725

damien

IrelandOffline will be on the "Straight Talk" show tomorrow around 9.20am on SouthCoast FM, then on Tipp FM at 11.30 and possibly on Clare FM after lunch.

eircomtribunal

From Enn:

Lobby group IrelandOffline has expressed alarm at the growing digital divide in Ireland in the wake of a new report from telecoms regulator ComReg. Figures in the report show that internet usage in Ireland has not increased in two years, that the majority of people connect using dial-up rather than broadband, and that ISDN usage is increasing rapidly rather than falling and being replaced with broadband. "These ComReg figures should start ringing alarm bells in the DCMNR [Department of Communications, the Marine and Natural Resources]. That we have a digital divide is a given, but with only 37 percent of households going online, a figure unchanged in two years, this divide isn't decreasing but rapidly turning into a chasm," said IrelandOffline chairperson Damien Mulley.

P.